Vascular & Interventional Radiology Fellowship

Our comprehensive training program offers physicians a one-year fellowship opportunity with experience and rotations through three diverse hospitals within the Texas Medical Center. The trainee is offered a varied experience in the sundry of interventional applications, including:

The program seeks to provide a unique and intense focus on oncologic applications, allowing the trainee maximum exposure in applying techniques and therapies on a focused oncologic patient population. Although the program is primarily directed from MD Anderson Cancer Center, ranked as one of the top two hospitals in cancer care every year since U.S. News & World Report began its annual “America’s Best Hospitals” survey in 1990, fellows are encouraged to enhance their knowledge and skills development with a non-oncologic population as well through rotations at St. Luke’s Medical Center and Memorial Hermann Hospital.

The Vascular and Interventional Radiology Fellowship is a phenomenal opportunity for newer physicians who wish to become both future physician leaders and be a part of shaping the future of interventional radiology.

In addition to being offered through MD Anderson, the Vascular and Interventional Radiology Fellowship, under the direction of Program Director Stephen E. McRae, M.D., is offered through:

Our Fellowship program has been established since April 2007 and is accredited by the Residency Review Committee for Radiology of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). This one year program provides a broad range of pertinent clinical experience and didactic instruction in essentially all areas needed to obtain a Certificate of Added Qualification (CAQ) from the American Board of Radiology.

Interviews are conducted between January through February. The fellowship has a total of six slots available.

Fellowship candidates must have completed an ACGME approved (or equivalent) residency training program in diagnostic radiology and should be board-certified or eligible by the American Board of Radiology. A fellowship appointment is contingent upon obtaining a Postgraduate Resident Permit or license, required by the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners, and appropriate visa status and any additional documentation necessary. Appointees must provide suitable documentation of immunization or immunity for various communicable diseases prior to starting a clinical program.

Four three-month rotations are offered throughout the fellow’s experience at MD Anderson Cancer Center, St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital and Memorial Hermann Hospital.

The hospitals collectively offer:

Combined capacity of 2,100 inpatient beds

Combined total of 84,000 annual hospital admissions

Combined total of 7,100 interventional procedures performed annually

Combined total of 14 practicing interventional radiologists

The three institutions are located in the Texas Medical Center (TMC), the largest comprehensive medical center in the world. The Texas Medical Center boasts a 675-acre complex of 41 not-for-profit healthcare institutions, including 14 hospitals dedicated to patient care, research and education.

The institutions of the TMC conduct more than $350 million in funded research and record more than 3.8 million annual patient visits. With more than 50,000 employees and rising, the Texas Medical Center is collectively the largest employer in the city of Houston, Texas.

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the world’s largest comprehensive cancer center, is dedicated to the mission of eliminating cancer through promotion of mission patient care, research, education and prevention. The facility includes:

437 inpatient beds

An 11-story outpatient clinic building

Numerous research laboratories and office complexes

An 11-story patient-family hotel

A satellite ambulatory treatment center

The hospital’s Vascular and Interventional Radiology Fellowship is currently accommodated in the Alkek building, which opened in January 1999. The program has seven dedicated suites offering modalities in angiography, fluoroscopy, CT and ultrasound. The clinical area began renovations in spring 2003 to accommodate all-new, state-of-the-art equipment, including the addition of two 16-slice CT units.

The program expanded its clinical operations into MD Anderson’s Mays Clinic Building, completed in November 2004. This expansion project accommodated two angiography units, one 16-slice CT and ultrasound. A dedicated interventional MRI unit was added to the offered modalities.

CHI St. Luke’s Medical Center houses the Texas Heart Institute, one of the nation’s leading institutions devoted to cardiovascular medicine. St. Luke’s facilities include 750 inpatient beds as well as a 29-story outpatient medical office building. In addition, it is a leading center for liver transplantation. This is the primary teaching hospital for Baylor College of Medicine.

Memorial Hermann Hospital, the primary teaching hospital for The University of Texas-Houston Medical School, is a Level 1 trauma center. Memorial Hermann Hospital operates more than 650 beds, 41% of which consist of monitored and critical care beds.

The three hospitals have a combined capacity of 2,100 beds and a total of 84,000 annual hospital admissions. Approximately 7,100 angiographic and interventional radiologic procedures are performed each year at all three institutions and staffed by 14 full-time interventional radiologists.

The University of Texas at Houston Fellowship is accredited by the Residency Review Committee for Radiology of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.

The one-year fellowship program provides direct staff supervision for all interventional radiology procedures. As the trainees achieve more experience with procedures, a lesser degree of supervision is applied. However, the responsible faculty member is always readily available.

This program provides a broad range of pertinent clinical experience and didactic instruction in essentially all areas needed to obtain a Certificate of Added Qualification (CAQ) from the American Board of Radiology. An optional second year of fellowship training is offered primarily as a research year and involves clinical and/or laboratory research training.

Fellowship candidates are required to demonstrate a general fund of knowledge about disorders amenable to diagnosis and/or treatment by percutaneous image-guided techniques.

Candidates must have an understanding of signs/symptoms, pathophysiology and natural history of pertinent diseases and be able to apply this knowledge to explain indications, contraindications and risks of a procedure as well as medical and/or surgical alternative/adjunctive therapies.

A fellowship appointment is contingent upon obtaining a Postgraduate Resident Permit or license, required by the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners, and appropriate visa status and any additional documentation necessary.

Appointees must provide suitable documentation of immunization or immunity for various communicable diseases prior to starting a clinical program.

In addition to performing procedures, trainees are responsible for pre- and post-procedure assessment and care. At daily morning planning conferences, the scheduled procedures are discussed with review of pertinent imaging and electronic chart.

The trainees discuss the procedure with the patient and obtain informed consent. The fellows are responsible for conducting daily hospital rounds for inpatients; these cases are discussed in morning case reviews.

Trainees

Evaluations are based on the experiences of each of the staff radiologists who have supervised the fellow. Strengths, weaknesses and goal development/fulfillment will be assessed and discussed.

The trainee’s knowledge, technical skills and interaction with technical staff, patients and other physicians will also be assessed; the fellowship seeks to encourage successful interpersonal working relationships as a measure and indicator of quality patient care. Deficiencies will be discussed with the program director at three- or four-month intervals.

Training Program

Anonymous evaluations of the program are returned to the Division of Diagnostic Imaging Education Office at MD Anderson Cancer Center. The program director reviews the results, and deficiencies are addressed either by intra- or inter-institutional discussion. Trainees are encouraged to speak to the program director regarding any issues.

Related Resources

MD Anderson Cancer Center is committed to encouraging good health and staying true to our mission to end cancer. If you are applying for a GME fellowship or residency program starting on or after July 1, 2016, please be advised that MD Anderson will have instituted a tobacco-free hiring process as part of its efforts to achieve these goals. If you are offered an appointment, you will be subject to a Pre-Employment Drug Screen for tobacco compounds in compliance with applicable state laws. If you do not pass the urine drug screening which includes testing for tobacco compounds, you CANNOT be appointed at MD Anderson. Should you fail to meet this contingency, MD Anderson will withdraw your offer of appointment for the academic year. You may reapply for the following academic year, but there are no guarantees that you will be offered a position as many of our programs are already filled for several years out.

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